Grid Review

Automobile erotica.

If you have even the slightest interest in driving virtual vehicles, you have plenty of options. For car collectors and strict simulation buffs, there are Forza Motorsport 2 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Fans of arcade racers can look to Burnout Paradise and Project Gotham Racing 4. Off-road fans have MX vs. ATV Untamed, SEGA Rally Revo and DiRT.

The team behind the latter, Codemasters Racing Studio, thought there was room in the already crowded videogame racing market for yet another entry, a game that deftly straddles the line between arcade racer and hardcore simulation all wrapped up in a glitzy high-gloss package.

So they dusted off the DiRT's groundbreaking engine, renamed it Ego and used it as the framework for an entirely new project: Grid, an unabashedly racing-focused game that takes the skeleton of Codemasters' old TOCA/Pro Race Driver series, slips it into a high-tech skin and imbues it with a modern soul.

The result is an intense, highly focused experience that offers nearly everything a road racing game should – speed, drama, precision, competition, and a sense of hard-won progression. And it does it all with impeccable style.

From the opening montage, Grid sets a slick cinematic tone, and it's a theme that carries over strongly into the game itself. In addition to the standard driving views – cockpit, hood, bumper and two third-person – Grid has a full replay system that lets you pause, rewind, fast-forward and change views of your performance. Its best component is a cinematic replay camera that gives you an incomparable sense of the speed, sound and action on the racetrack.

Whether you smoke the competition in a flawless GT1 race or crash magnificently in the streets of Shibuya, Grid's replay cam captures it all with intimacy and flair. If you've never been one to view replays of your races in videogames, Grid's cam may just convert you. Although you can review your race as many times as you like immediately after it's over, it's gone forever once you exit the race. With such a great tool at my disposal, I found it disappointing that I could not save my races to my hard drive – not because I wanted to show off my driving skills, but rather because some of my wipeouts were so spectacular that I wanted to share them.

Drifting toward greatness.

Codemasters paid close attention to the camera in Grid, and not just in replay. The in-game cam works consistently well, whether you're zooming along a straightaway with a cockpit view or drifting around a hairpin in third-person. Even in the menus, Grid is never quite static. You'll always see movement in the background, and titles shift slightly on-screen. In Grid, as in DiRT, choosing an option feels like you're setting something in motion rather than simply clicking a button.

Forward momentum is what Grid is all about. Once you create your character and give him or her a name and country of origin, the poor sap gets dumped directly on the track for a virgin race. There's no tutorial. You don't flip through a menu of cars and tracks. It's into a Dodge Viper and up to 100 mph. Finish that race and you're officially a freelance driver, hiring yourself out to the highest bidder in an effort to raise €60,000 toward a car of your own.